How This Site Makes Money

Since 2009, Merchant Maverick has followed a clear mission: to guide and empower business decision-makers with honest, accurate, and actionable information. Our core values are transparency, integrity, trustworthiness, and helpfulness, and every review we write seeks to embody those qualities. Sticking to these values allows us to deliver content that helps our readers make informed and successful buying decisions.

Players in the product review industry often rely on sketchy practices, pay-for-play reviews, and biased or unfair ratings based on compensation, so our goal is to be as transparent as possible about how we make money.

Does Merchant Maverick Get Paid To Write Reviews?

Absolutely not. Merchant Maverick does not get paid to write reviews, either positive or negative. If a vendor approaches us with an offer of cash or other incentives in exchange for a positive review, we refuse – we always have and we always will. Our editorial team and our partnerships team operate separately. Our writers are not paid on commission, and they are not allowed to accept gifts or other compensation from the vendors they write about. We pay our editorial team competitive wages and offer excellent benefits; they have no incentive to tell anything but the truth.

If a vendor receives 5 out of 5 stars, hours of in-depth research have led the writer to determine that rating. You can read our rating and scoring system guidelines for more information about how we determine ratings. Each writer has full autonomy over their own product reviews, and they do not have to defer to anyone in the company, even the CEO, when rating a piece of software or a service provider.

How Do Merchant Maverick’s Referral Partnerships Work?

We form strategic referral partnerships with top-rated service providers, and we earn commissions by referring customers to these services.

Here are the safety measures we have put in place to ensure our editorial content remains accurate and unbiased:

• Writers have complete discretion to review and rate providers based on hours of research, testing, and industry experience.
• We only partner with companies our editorial department has already reviewed favorably, 4 stars or higher.
• We actively reevaluate partnerships when editorial review ratings change.
• We routinely dissolve agreements with vendors whose products or services decline in quality.
• We constantly form new agreements with growing vendors who may not be big market players, but who still provide value to consumers.

Our commissions are determined by the number of referred customers who successfully transact with a vendor. Therefore, the highest-paying vendor on any given page is directly correlated with their ability to meet the readers’ intent on that page. This performance-based approach leads to mutually beneficial outcomes for both our partners and our readers.

We never give prominent placement to a vendor we don’t already recommend highly.

Can You Be Unbiased When You Are Receiving Referral Commissions?

We have a strong incentive to remain unbiased. Our referral commissions depend entirely on whether our readers trust our reviews and ultimately use — and keep using — the products and services we recommend. If we push shady companies forward for a quick buck, everyone loses. You don’t trust our site or follow our recommendations, and we don’t receive compensation for referring you to excellent business products.

The vendors we work with depend on Merchant Maverick for accurate feedback about how their product works, how it is perceived by the public, and in which ways it can improve. Many companies actually make changes to their product in direct response to a negative review by Merchant Maverick. We have a responsibility to help the companies we review get better, just as we have a responsibility to direct you to the most appropriate software or services for your business.

Since the company was founded in 2009, we’ve reviewed thousands of merchant account providers, POS software companies, and business software providers. We update our reviews frequently, and a 5 out of 5 today might become a 3 out of 5 tomorrow. The good news is that there will always be another company out there that can take that top spot. There will never be a shortage of companies we can refer you to.

Feedback Is Always Welcome

We always welcome feedback. Whether you agree or disagree with our content, comments and emails are always welcome. While we love to hear about what we’re doing right, it’s just as important to be informed of what we’re doing wrong.

We are proud to be able to provide our content at no cost. Our job is to provide unbiased, honest, and informative content. There is never any obligation to work with a vendor or click on our referral links.

Finally, if you have an idea of how Merchant Maverick can provide value to you without dipping into the referral commission structure, please tell us.

Our mission and values have remained the same since day one, and we plan to keep it that way. We know that our readers are what makes Merchant Maverick a success, so it is our goal to provide the best content, complete transparency, and integrity in everything we post.

While it’s true that you can’t trust everything you read on the internet, rest assured that you can trust the content brought to you by Merchant Maverick.

Visit our FAQ and Contact page to submit your feedback.